Product Description

Studio One is a groundbreaking music-creation and production application for Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista that makes audio recording, MIDI sequencing, and audio mastering ridiculously simple right out of the box, yet provides a wealth of professional features.

Fresh code, innovative drag-and-drop MIDI mapping and plug-in management, auto-configuration with PreSonus hardware, insanely good audio quality, unlimited tracks and plug-ins per track, and a powerful, inventive Start page that literally puts the whole project right in your hands are just a few of the compelling features that make Studio One the next generation in audio software. Far from just another music-production program, Studio One changes the rules of the game, giving you a complete, easy-to-use solution from raw tracks to finished master, while supporting the latest standards and technologies.

Features

For the committed, spends-days-locked-in-the-studio producer, Studio One Pro includes everything in Studio One Artist and adds:

A Vision Created From Experience

Yes, PreSonus has been creating high-quality digital audio interfaces for years. In the past, we bundled our interfaces with third-party DAWs. But we weren't entirely happy with any of the choices: the "pro" versions are so cluttered with features that are used by only a handful of people that it's difficult to access the tools used constantly, and the entry-level versions usually have severe limitations, including a limited number of tracks. So we decided to provide PreSonus customers with software that is powerful and easy to use, integrates tightly with our hardware, and works well with competing hardware that supports Core Audio or ASIO.

But, no, we didn't try to write a DAW programs ourselves! When developing our StudioLive 16.4.2 digital mixer, we needed a really simple but great-sounding recording application that would tightly integrate with it. We found great partners in Wolfgang Kundrus and Matthias Juwan of KristalLabs in Hamburg, Germany, who had previously worked on such Steinberg mainstays as Nuendo and Cubase. We were so impressed with their skills and products that we decided to team with them to simultaneously develop Capture, the StudioLive 16.4.2's software mate, and Studio One. Visit www.presonussoftware.com to meet this incredibly talented group of DAW veterans.

Our goal was clear and simple: Wipe the slate clean and apply decades of collective software and hardware experience to bring the DAW back to the musician and producer. After two years of coding and testing, Studio One Artist and Studio One Pro are the result.

High-End Audio Engine

Studio One is based on a cutting-edge audio engine that delivers unparalleled sound. Studio One Pro's 64-bit audio engine automatically switches between 32-bit and 64-bit floating-point processing on the fly (even with a 32-bit OS), ensuring the highest quality audio at all times. Studio One Artist's audio engine always operates in 32-bit mode.

Compatible and Easy to Configure

Studio One is compatible with any ASIO-, Windows Audio-, or CoreAudio-compliant audio interface, including, of course, the entire line of PreSonus interfaces. Studio One recognizes your PreSonus interface, and preprogrammed templates automatically create software inputs and assign them to the appropriate hardware inputs on your PreSonus interface. You don't have to configure your software to work with your hardware--Studio One does it for you!"

Studio One stores I/O configurations with each song, for each computer, and for each device driver. As a result, you can take a song to a friend's studio, use Studio One with their interface, and when you get back to your studio, Studio One will recall the original I/O configuration for the song, as if you never left. This works regardless of interface.

Innovative Start Page

A powerful tool that will appeal to professionals and hobbyists alike, the Start page allows you to access recent songs and projects, create new ones, configure external devices, and access tutorial information, demo songs, and a special PreSonus news feed. You can download updates and support materials directly from the Start page, without ever leaving Studio One.

Easy to Navigate

Unlike most music-production programs, a single, straightforward workspace allows you to track, edit, and mix in one easy-to-navigate window that you can access with a single click. Or if you wish, you can separate the Console and Arrange views and can even drag them to separate displays. A compact Console view allows you to mix while viewing the arrangement so you don't have to bounce back and forth between windows. You also can switch to a larger Console view--yet another way that Studio One helps you work quickly while giving you maximum flexibility.

The Arrange view employs a waveform display with user-selectable color-coding and sample-level zoom. The Arrange view shows you the big picture, while the Edit view shows you the up-close details; used together, they virtually eliminate the need to zoom in and out. The Console view contains faders, solos, mutes, pans, and other expected elements. It also includes extensive sidechaining capability.

Studio One's Browser provides instant access to effects, loops, instruments, and other key elements. You can preview any audio clip, and if the clip has tempo information encoded, it will play synced to the song tempo.

Powerful Drag-and-Drop Features

Here's where it gets really interesting: Studio One's powerful drag-and-drop function allows you to drag an audio clip, effect, or a virtual instrument from the Browser directly onto a track in the Arrange or Console view. Time stretching enables Studio One to automatically match tempo-encoded audio clips with Song tempo. You can copy an effect or a whole chain of effects--including settings--by simply dragging to a new track in the Console view. These are just a few of the many ways that Studio One's Browser and drag-and-drop implementation allow you to work quickly, without scrolling through pages of menus. It's a lot more fun too! No other music-production program even comes close.

Awesome Plug-Ins

Studio One ships with a generous library of PreSonus's proprietary Native Effects Suite plug-ins, which include a wide variety of built-in effects, such as compressors, EQs, distortion, delay effects, amp modeling, modulation effects, and reverbs. These are brand-new plug-ins that process audio with 64-bit floating-point double precision in Studio One Pro and with 32-bit floating-point single precision in Studio One Artist. This is truly state-of-the-art technology. Studio One also utilizes automatic latency (processing delay) compensation, which keeps tracks in sync regardless of plug-in processing.

Four new PreSonus virtual instruments are also bundled with both versions of Studio One, including SampleOne, a virtual sampler that offers the fastest sample mapping available.

Furthermore, Studio One Pro supports ReWire and the VST and AU plug-in formats, including the new VST 3 plug-in specification (also with automatic latency compensation), so you are ready to use the newest plug-ins as they are released.

Easy, Intuitive MIDI Mapping

When it comes to MIDI mapping, Studio One changes the rules yet again. Of course, you can record MIDI parts and then tweak them in a piano-roll editor. But the real fun starts with Control Link, the most intuitive MIDI-mapping system available. Simply move the hardware and software controls to be linked and click the Link button for instant mapping. In Global mode, hardware and software controls maintain a one-to-one relationship, so a hardware control is linked directly to one software control for the entire program. In Focus mode, control maps only apply to a particular plug-in, so you can make different control maps for each plug-in, and the Focus map is stored with the plug-in, giving you no-sweat, context-sensitive MIDI mapping. This works with all parameters of any VST or AU plug-in. At last, a music-production application that makes controller mapping as easy and flexible as it always should have been!

Integrated Mastering Suite (Studio One Pro)

The Project page (Studio One Pro only) is a complete mastering solution that is fully integrated with the rest of the program. The Project page includes all the necessary tools to create a production-quality master, including effects, crossfades, volume envelopes, and meters. You can make disc images, burn Red Book CDs, and create digital-release albums, complete with metadata. In addition, Studio One Pro creates an intelligent link when songs are placed in a Project for mastering, automatically updating any changes to the original tracks or subsequent mixes. From basic tracking to multiple-release mastering, Studio One Pro is the complete solution.

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This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
"Presonus Studio One is a winner!!!!!"

Sound:
This DAW sounds very clean and transparent to me. Does not sound very colored or thin from the audio I listened to. DSP'ing sounded natural to me. I have enough professional experience to decide what will work professionally or not. This certainly will for those that have trained ears and are technically skilled.
Feature:
It has all of the features I would need for audio/midi production and more. Only thing that I wish it did have is the ability to score to video, which is why I score it a "9". You can't import any type of video file .mov, .avi, .mpg, or whatever to score to picture. This of course will not work if you are a film composer of some sort. But regular songwriters and producers could care less about this feature.
I'm sure this is probably some feature that they will include in a future update somehow.
Ease of Use:
Very, very simple to figure out and understand, without loking at the manual, which I tried to purposely do. The layout is very intuitive and logical for easy workflow. At least it was easy for me, because I've been producing with DAW's since 97'. However, considering that I have used everything since the original legacy Nubus Mac version of Pro Tools and Digital Performer 2.1, I would say that Studio One is very easy to figure out.
To be fair, if you have no prior experience with using DAW's on a computer, then it really doesn't matter what app you start out with, there's still going to be a learning curve for you. I just don't think the learning curve for a newbie will be as steep with Studio One.
Quality:
This is really important for people to know. At the moment, I own a custom made Pentium D 2.8 ghz/1 gig RAM/ Win XP Pro PC used strictly for music creation that I put together about 4 yrs ago. Studio One played back the bundled Project DEMO without a glitch! In fact, it didn't even get to the 50% cpu performance mark! And if you look at the make-up of all of the channels and tracks in that project, there are many different plug-ins, and s/w instruments going on at once on each channel. Didn't tax my PC one bit. So Im very pleased with the performance of Studio One.
It is also highly configurable with whatever audio hardware and controllers you need to use with it. It is very midi smart, and self-intuitive when it comes to setting up initially. Also boots up very fast.
Value:
This product is a steal for all that it has to offer. I know that there are some things that Studio One may not have as extensivley when it comes to some advanced audio/midi capabilities as other DAWs. But, I can assure you that none of the things that some people say it doesn't have compared to Logic or Cubase, or whatever is not anything soo extremely important that it would prevent you from still coming up with a professional recording, sequence, or arrangement.
Let me remind some people that before Logic was even owned by Apple, and originally by eMagic, there were still hit songs and music production created with it for over a decade. And those DAW versions certainly didn't have all of the features that the current ones have now. Having said that, I feel even that much more confident in how fufilling Studio One will accomplish whatever audio needs you have, regardless of 1 or 2 "special" features in comparison.
Manufacturer Support:
I personally called and spoke with someone at Presonus that was able to answer all of my questions and concerns I had as a pre-sales customer and professional. He was more than help and friendly. Wouldn't hesitate to ever call again.
The Wow Factor:
Ok here's the honest truth. You could have a brand new Bentley with platinum plated doors and rims, and there would still be someone that will complain that the platinum could shine brighter! That seems to be the mentality of soo many people today, never satisifed, and can always find something wrong.
Ok, having said that, let me say this, I think Studio One looks great! I love the color scheme, it's easy on my eyes, and the GUI is scaled proportionally for selecting and locating whatever tools you need while working on a project. I love the way it feels. Forget whether or not it looks like Logic, or PT or, whatever. There are only soo many designs you can create for a modern DAW before it looks like something else. Kind of like collecting different snare drum hits. There are only soo many variations of a snare drum before it still sounds like, a snare drum again...
Overall:
I do intend to move to this as my main DAW, replacing what I currently use, which is Nuendo 2.x, which is still great. However, I'm not gonig to spend $1000+ to get an update to Nuendo. I like Nuendo, but I also like my money better. And I want a program that will help me make money as a music professional, not put me in the whole financially before I know if I will make a profit from my investment.
To me, Studio One is a stellar DAW workstation that you can't go wrong with if you're looking for a DAW. I love the flow and the layout. It certainly works for me in spades!!!!!

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This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
"Never Going back to Pro Tools!"

Sound:
Sounds GREAT! pretty much the same quality you'll get from ProTools, Logic, and all the others. When coupled with Presonus hardware, recording and midi functions are a breeze and sound EXCELLENT! Have not used midi controller with it yet (waiting on that to be shipped) but it has a qwerty keyboard controller option that works great if you don't have a midi controller. Virtual instruments are awesome (Presence for keys, Impact for drums, Mojito for synth, and Sample One for samples. Sound Sets are top of the line and they include TONS of sounds!
Feature:
Features are excellent. everything is drag and drop and everything is a "Single window" feature meaning that everything is there. you don't have to open another program to do mastering or anything else, and S1 Pro even has the best mastering suite I've seen in a DAW. It also allows you to upload your songs to a file sharing website called Soundcloud. The previous review that knocked this program for not having certain features is mostly inaccurate. it actually does have all of those features like QWERTY keyboard mapping of midi notes, 2 screen display, movie scoring, full screen editing functions, and grouping of multiple tracks. These are features in the "Pro" version though, so maybe those guys had the "artist" version. if you buy presonus hardware you get artist free and upgrade for $200 to Pro is WELL WORTH IT!
also has the ability to Bounce at faster speeds than the song itself, which pro tools CANNOT do.
Also allows you to edit and mess with parameters while the song is playing and/or recording.....another thing you CANNOT do in pro tools
Ease of Use:
absolutely user friendly and the user manual is extremely well written and helpful. everything is done in one window and everything is drag and drop, literally EVERYTHING. Probably the easiest of all the DAW's out there. I've tried ProTools, Logic, Cubase, Digital Performer, and Nuendo.....Studio One Pro is the best!
Quality:
When it comes to quality of a software product that usually has other factors involved, like RAM and CPU processor speed. I'm running a standard Macbook (not Pro) with 2 gigs ram and 2.6 ghz processor with 500gigs of hard drive space. I've been using the program for about 8 months and have yet to have it crash or freeze on me even when recording 4 vocals and 4 instruments into it at a time. I have noticed that if you disable WiFi on your computer you get a quicker workflow. But either way there have been no unwanted pops or clicks in my audio as of yet.
Value:
Seeing as how I got the upgrade for $149 through an online promotion, I can't say that I've ever spent my money on a better product. I was ready to drop $200 on the upgrade but when I checked my email that day, VOILA! i got a coupon! check with them on this, i think they extended it. but I have heard employees at Guitar center that this is the only DAW software that people are actually buying by itself, even avid pro tools users are buying it at full price because they are curious. and then they are hooked!
Manufacturer Support:
Haven't had warranty service yet but I have software and hardware from presonus and have called tech support just to ask questions abotu how things work because I'm used to using other programs. So far they have been rather helpful and I never am on hold for more than a few minutes waiting to talk to someone. only thing is, I wish they were open on the weekends. and they have a flaw on their product support page on their website. you log-in and it doesn't recognize that you have logged in. only reason I give support a 9.
The Wow Factor:
Probably the sleekest and most aesthetic DAW on the market. Looks great, color scheme is great and virtual instruments and effects windows are easy to look at as well and actually look really cool. this one is SEXY!
Overall:
I would install this on every computer I own even if I had a thousand computers. and if my hard drive crashed and I've exhausted the installs (you get 5 installs) i would buy it again, even at full price. This product has helped me be mroe creative with its super fast workflow and ease of use. ROCK ON PRESONUS!

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